On an unusually warm Tuesday night in February, a downtown dinner guest of Catholic Charities’ Franciscan Sister Joyce Dura Supper Program waved me down. She wanted to know if she could send back her food because she suspected it wasn’t properly cooked.
We don’t always have a ton of food left after serving 145 guests who are unhoused or experiencing housing insecurity. So, while I tried to replace her meal with a warm smile while assuring her that our food safety measures were being followed, I was secretly a little nervous and even frustrated that she might continue to require more of our team’s limited time and limited supply of food throughout the evening.
Later that evening, after thanking our guests for coming and guiding our volunteers through the clean-up process, the guest with the earlier concerns about the meal asked for my help getting to the hallway bathroom with her belongings. I glanced at the clock and noticed that I had nine minutes before I needed to hustle out the door to catch my train home, relieve my mother (the babysitter) and get my kids into bed.
I helped our guest to the bathroom and asked if there was anything else I could do for her. She said she really needed a towel and soap to clean herself up.
I thought to myself, “Great! I can run and grab the keys to our clothing room and get that stuff for her before racing out of here to catch my train.” It took a couple minutes to accomplish this, as a couple guests and volunteers stopped to ask questions while I was on my mission, but I found what she needed and returned to the bathroom.
When I handed our guest the items, thinking the situation was handled, she looked at me and, with tears in her eyes, said, “I need your help. I have had a stomach virus all day, and my clothes and body are soiled. I need to be cleaned. But I can’t do it myself because of my disability.”
In that moment, I could hear, no feel, Jesus’ invitation: “Do you love me? Show my sister — our sister — your love.” The only answer worthy of Catholic Charities was, “Here I am. How can I help?”
We spent the next 45 minutes together as we got her clean. I found her new clothes that would be gentle on her skin and shoes that would relieve her swollen feet. I put together a bag of additional snacks and items that could help soothe her painful skin and help her stay clean over the coming days as she healed from her ailment.
By the end of the experience, I asked where she would be heading next. She said all she needed was some help getting outside to wait for a friend who “usually comes this way” to help her to a nearby shelter.
As I returned to my office to wait another hour before walking to the next train home, I thought about how that night hadn’t fixed or solved any of the larger problems that our dinner guest was facing in her life. I felt that all I could do was pray that she would be comfortable through the night and feel better in the coming days.
That night, our dinner guest looked into my eyes and reminded me who she was — the face of Christ in our downtown Chicago headquarters — and it has changed me.
St. Teresa of Kolkata calls these moments seeing Christ in distressing disguise. Years of studying theology, training for ministry, serving and leading in Catholic church contexts had given me the language for this and helped me share this wisdom with communities I served. But this experience of meeting Christ in my neighbor — our dinner guest — as she invited me to live into the Gospel was yet another grace that helped embody the Gospel mandate.
It was a sacramental moment; God’s grace was mediated through the stuff of the world. It both reminded me of the world’s brokenness and invited me to practice compassion and mercy — the same mercy for which I am in need, daily.
Catholic Charities is an essential part of the field hospital that Pope Francis reminded us is the call of the church in the world. Our guests, our clients, our neighbors, our volunteers, our colleagues ... they continue to call us back to ourselves and to the work that is our honor to do in this world so full of need and so full of grace.